


In Calms of Ease

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Series: Shifting Scenes of Varied Life (Regency Timestamps) [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cuddling, Established Relationship, Fluff, Forgiveness, Hellfire Club, Instruction, M/M, Masturbation, Mild Voyeurism, Rimming, Spanking, Teasing, playfulness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-02 01:32:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4040566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It is the third day since the rainstorm, since the notebook and Hannibal’s promise. The only day that Will had allowed himself to set aside and work less, to be able to enjoy his time more. The next morning, he has few chores, most completed in the days before, and the night is entirely theirs.</i>
</p>
<p>Some timestamps for the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3595293">Little Arts of Vice</a> verse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WarpedChyld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarpedChyld/gifts).



> A huge thank you to [noodletheelephant](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/) for her amazing beta skills! Thank you bb you are wonderful :D

It isn't as though Will hasn't been in the house before.

He's been in Hannibal's room, no less, the first time he brought roses to him when Hannibal returned from London. The first time their fingers brushed not as playful children, unaware yet of their own hearts' intent, but as adults keenly feeling that gentle touch through every fiber of their being.

Will has been here before.

And the constant reminder in Hannibal's own mind does little to ease him.

He holds the door open for Will, and holds his breath in kind. He is lucky that Will is here at all, that Will has given him this chance to make amends for the mistake that Hannibal recognized far too late. Hannibal lingers in the doorway, uncharacteristically reserved in the slight bend of his shoulders, and the wideness of his eyes. They dart to survey the room and assure himself that everything is in its place, neat and tidy and orderly.

And then he watches as Will takes it in, with new eyes, and Hannibal marvels at the feeling that the room is somehow more complete with Will in it.

It is the third day since the rainstorm, since the notebook and Hannibal’s promise. The only day that Will had allowed himself to set aside and work less, to be able to enjoy his time more. The next morning, he has few chores, most completed in the days before, and the night is entirely theirs.

He looks at the room, now, not as a porter might, or a servant, but as someone who has every right to be here. He looks at it for comfort and positioning, he looks over the clean flat spaces atop bookcases and tables, bedside shelves and large cabinets. He looks to the windows, wide and overlooking the hyacinth garden, the corner of the lake beyond, dark, now, but Will would know the layout of his gardens blindfolded.

He looks to the bed.

He thinks of his own, tiny and creaking, where he had given himself entirely to the young man that stands behind him now, where he had offered everything and found himself given just as much in return. He swallows, blush warming his face, before he turns to Hannibal with a smile.

“Will you not come into your own room?”

In truth, each moment that passes pulls at Hannibal with a peculiar sensation. Nothing so intense as shame, but instead a mild embarrassment for the high ceiling and polished floors, for the sprawling four-post bed and luxurious couches. It all feels so unnecessary, so showy, when Hannibal had found himself most contented in the single-room house that Will has made his home.

Perhaps, Hannibal allows, it was Will's presence there that made it so.

Finally sighing, Hannibal steps into the room and lets the heavy door swing shut behind him. He holds his hands behind his back, too tense to set them into his jacket pockets.

"Awaiting your approval," Hannibal admits.

Will laughs, brows drawn in pleasant confusion before he turns to move to Hannibal and stand before him. There is something very endearing about his restraint, the nervousness that Will has not once seen hover over him as it does now. A part of him still feels that cruel tug, that squeeze against his heart for the hurt Hannibal had given him, but Will has forgiven it. He has watched Hannibal work to redeem himself with his actions, and in truth, Will cannot imagine having to remain mad at him.

He loves him too much.

“You have my approval,” he murmurs, “to be as you always were, here. I am your guest, not the other way around.”

“I hope not just a guest,” Hannibal says, and Will can see him slowly relax as they speak, and wrinkles his nose in amusement.

“Perhaps a permanent guest.”

Hannibal loosens his hands from behind his back. He lifts one towards Will and hesitates with raised brows, asking silent permission granted to him with a soft smile. Slowly, reverent, he draws his knuckles down Will's cheek, and spreads his fingers to frame his jaw.

As if he had not been within Will entirely, had not tasted his friend's pleasure in as many ways as he could during their first and only night together, Hannibal leans with as much hesitation as if he'd never kissed him before. Their lips touch, softly, spreading into a building warmth, and even this slight touch pulls a sound from Hannibal despite his carriage. He is weakened by Will. He wants to be.

Drawing back to sigh lingering tension from his frame, he rests their brows together and nuzzles alongside Will's nose.

"More than that," Hannibal beseeches him. "I want this space to be as much yours as my own. I want myself to be your own."

Will hums, turns his head to seek another kiss and brings his own arms up to rest heavy over Hannibal’s shoulders. He is warm, trembling softly from tension into laxity as Will steps closer and they share air.

“Shall I claim you then?” Will asks, amused, eyes up and bright when they meet his friend’s. “Kiss every inch of you that I can reach, and remind you every day that you are mine?”

He could, he thinks he will, once they have fallen into a comfortable arrangement, once they both know what the other wants, what the other needs and how to provide it. He both fears and aches for Hannibal to be in him again, to push his voice breathless and still pleading from his lips. He knows - he hopes - that the morning after their next joining will not bring with it news of more cruelties. 

He kisses Hannibal again and pulls back with a coy little smile, just out of reach, peeling his coat from his shoulders and letting it fall to the floor. He watches the way Hannibal’s eyes flick down to it, a twitch of his lip suggesting he wants to pick it up, and Will just clicks his tongue.

“No,” Will tells him. “It stays.”

Hannibal huffs a laugh and slips an arm around Will's waist. He touches kisses along his hairline, nosing against wild brown curls as untamed as the man himself. He lingers on his temple and draws a breath, savoring the scent of sweat and soil and dogs and flowers that clings to his friend in a dizzying and rich perfume of the grounds that he tends. Hannibal marvels at the thought that he might be one of those things in Will's life that will receive such gentle care, despite how little he deserves it after his behavior.

Will's forgiveness is a blessing, and Hannibal intends to cherish that undue compassion for as long as he is able.

He works his fingers down the buttons of Will's shirt, no ornate cravats or collars to move past, just simple linen worn soft with age and sun. Mouth drifting lower, he catches Will's earlobe between his lips and sucks, just a little, releasing him with a smile when Will shivers.

When broad hands work Will's shirt from his shoulders, Hannibal leaves it where it falls. This, this is what he wants, signs of Will's existence spread across Hannibal's reality, altering his space, altering him. He has never tolerated untidiness, but from Will, it is entirely charming.

It is welcome, and wanted.

"We will claim each other, I think," Hannibal muses. "But as my guest, for now, I should yield the right to you first."

Will laughs, a shivering thing, and sets his hand to Hannibal’s cravat to work it carefully undone. He can - and has - played at unending confidence, but in truth he has little knowledge of how to bring pleasure to another as Hannibal had to him. He does not know how to touch and effortlessly shift as Hannibal does, he does not know how to control as he does.

Will sets the cravat, still warm, around his own neck for the moment as he works the buttons of Hannibal’s shirt undone, laughing when he reaches his vest and has to work those open too. Unpracticed, fumbling, silly. Will blushes and hopes - _hopes_ \- that Hannibal finds it more charming than annoying.

Will holds his breath, as he had the first time, when he runs his fingers through the hair on Hannibal's chest, warm and thick and entirely masculine. Will thinks of his own lanky body, hairless and small, and blushes darker, looking up to Hannibal’s eyes again and offering a smile before slipping his bottom lip between his teeth, watching as Hannibal follows the motion and his throat works in a swallow.

Hannibal does not steer him to the bed as he would another, hurrying to splay their legs and pin them with hands and teeth and cock. He is ravenous, always, for Will more than any other he's ever known, but the sweet uncertainty in his eyes and the nervousness in his touch slows the quickening from Hannibal's heart and settles it. He can be patient. He will be. He wants to be and he wants to think that they will have time, endless time now, to learn each other entirely.

He shrugs to help Will slide the vest away, his shirt next. Toeing off the tall boots of soft leather, he steps forward and presses the length of his body against his friend. Hannibal sets a hand to the small of Will's back to keep him close, the other to his cheek, and leans into another slow kiss that for being so unhurried simmers scalding hot.

"There are rules," Hannibal murmurs, "of hospitality. The host is to give of themselves entirely to their guest. Whether they thirst or hunger upon arrival, they will not by the time they go. If they wish for music, it will be provided. If they wish for quiet conversation, they will have it for all the hours it pleases them. The host is to make their home as welcoming as their guest's own."

Hannibal reaches to wrap his fingers around Will's slender wrist. He sets his friend's hand to his heart, sighing when Will curls his fingers against the thick swath of hair that warms Hannibal's chest.

"Let me make a home for you here," he asks, his own uncertainty softening his voice. "Make yourself comfortable with me, and let me welcome you."

Will shivers, delighted and pleased, curling his fingers a little harder against Hannibal’s skin as he remembers the man allowing him to before. It feels good, it feels real and alive and tangible between them, and Will wants more.

He ducks his head to kiss against the place his fingers splayed, to feel Hannibal’s pulse speed from it, to feel his own rush to catch up. He laughs again, nuzzles closer and brings his hands down to Hannibal’s pants to work them open, lifting his head to kiss beneath Hannibal’s jaw, to the sharp edge of it, to just beneath his ear before he tugs the lobe as Hannibal had his.

“I feel very welcome,” Will murmurs. “I missed you and can barely believe we are here, now.” He laughs again, seeming unable to stop, and feels Hannibal smile despite Will’s awkwardness, despite his trembling fingers and seeking hands. Will looks up when he finally curls his fingers around Hannibal’s cock, looks up to see the way Hannibal’s lips part at the feeling, the way his blinking grows languid and slow, lazy in his pleasure.

“I want to give you everything,” Will whispers, starting to gently stroke. “Joy and pleasure and comfort.” He swallows, leans in to press delicate lips to Hannibal’s bottom one, sucking softly. “Myself.”

Every movement Hannibal makes is only after permission is asked through slowed fingers and meaningful looks. At any point, Will could ask him to slow. Will could stop him entirely with a look, with a breath cut too short, with hands against Hannibal’s own. He could bring Hannibal to his knees with a word.

He does not.

Hannibal’s throat clicks as he swallows, nearly lost to the blissful play of Will’s fingers against his cock. He works loose his friend’s trousers in turn, slipping them past narrow hips, to his thighs, and letting them pool unminded to the floor. When Will steps free from them, Hannibal follows, held in thrall by the wide pupils and flushed lips that beckon him near, by the rosy blush blooming ruddy across lightly freckled cheeks. His innocence is tangible, soft as silk and sweet as honey.

He sighs against Will’s brow and rolls his hips forward into his hand, heart skipping when another joins it to stroke in tandem.

“You have always been braver than I,” Hannibal whispers. “Do you remember? When my uncertainty might have kept us from discovery, it was you who took my hand and pulled me into the woods, up into the trees, into the lake where we swam bare together. And I went with you, knowing that waiting without you would be worse than whatever I imagined might befall us. I went with you in certainty that your confidence alone would keep us safe.”

He turns Will’s head aside with a firmer kiss to his cheek, dragging his lips down and pressing them again and again until he reaches the swanlike curve of Will’s neck.

“Perhaps the years apart have been an attempt at overcompensation,” he adds, self-effacing despite his grin.

Will laughs, warm and soft against him, and draws in a breath when Hannibal’s nuzzling tickles against his skin.

“I always thought you the more confident of the two of us,” Will admits, biting his lips on another little whimper when Hannibal’s practiced hand works him steadily harder. Will glances to the bed and shivers, laughing and burying his face against Hannibal’s shoulder before kissing where it joins his neck.

But despite his words it is Will who pulls away first, who lets go first and presses his finger against Hannibal’s lips to keep him still and quiet, blushing deeper when he just kisses the fingertip with warm lips. Will steps back, and again, enough to be out of arm’s reach when he turns and bends to slip his underwear from his thighs, lets them fall to the floor and straightens, entirely bare, to look over his shoulder.

“I want you in my bed,” Will tells him, moving to set one knee to it and push himself up to perch on the edge. “I want to feel your hands.” Will hesitates a moment before sliding the length of his body down the bed, not long enough to reach the end even with fingers outstretched, and he laughs, arching his back and lifting his hips before rubbing gently down against the expensive sheets.

Hannibal would never lay claim to the sound that escapes him, a vocal little sigh aching and high. He is sundered by Will, leveled by his beauty and intoxicated by his words. Stepping closer, he feels nearly drunk, as if Will has unsettled the world beneath his feet. He sets his hands to the bed posts, arms spread wide, and for moments more simply watches his friend - more, now - rub slow against the bed. His knees draw up to curve his backside high, presenting himself and stirring a ferocious need in Hannibal to pin him, to claim him again, to show Will with his body alone how maddeningly perfect Hannibal considers him. And slowly, so slowly that Hannibal’s breath stops in watching it, Will spreads his legs wide again and curves his spine the other way, to stroke himself through the movement of his hips down against the mattress.

Again and again, and each time, Hannibal grows dizzier for it, hardly breathing at all as Will makes Hannibal’s bed into his own.

“Your hands,” Will reminds him, and Hannibal swallows back the groan that pushes upward from his chest.

Setting his knees to the bed, he inches closer, but does not sprawl himself across Will as he would like. No, if Will is to be his guest, then Hannibal will abide by the rules they have set for that. He will treat him with all the reverence he deserves. He will show Will how precious he is, how worthy.

Strong hands settle soft to his ankles, circling across the taut tendons and beginning a slow span upward. Over firm calves, tickling the backs of Will’s knees, Hannibal learns him inch by adoring inch, and finally releases a soft moan when his fingers frame Will’s thighs, made powerful by his work.

“Tell me,” Hannibal whispers. “Anything.”

“Higher,” Will replies, sighing out, pleased, when Hannibal’s hands slid up the gentle curve of his backside, thumbs warm against his skin. Will shivers, shifts back into Hannibal’s hold and sighs when he presses his fingers a little firmer against him.

Will is blushing, cheeks a deep pink, before he bites his lip and with a little laugh, repeats his request. “Higher.”

Up his back and to his shoulders, over his neck and into his hair, and all the while, Will continues the little shifts against the bed, the teasing turns of his hips and his nuzzling. He continues the whispered words and the little presses of his fingers to the sheets.

“I have to commend my host’s hands,” Will whispers, watching Hannibal over his shoulder before he bites his lip, hard enough to pale it, and releases it with a sigh. “But what of his lips? Are they as welcoming?”

“Let them express utter joy at your arrival,” Hannibal murmurs, a smile warming his words. He sweeps aside Will’s curls from his neck, and rests his mouth warm against the back of it. Downward, now, to the knob of his spine, across his left shoulder with soft touches, and back to the right. Hannibal follows the ridges of Will’s spine, hands pressed to his ribs to feel his breath tighten, kissing the undulations that work Will’s hips harder against the bed beneath.

“Lower,” Will whispers, hiding his laugh beneath his hand.

“My guest knows, I think, exactly what he wants.”

Will hums, making his back convex up against the damp heat of Hannibal’s mouth, and folding his arms beneath his cheek to tilt his head and watch, he says only:

“Lower.”

“As you wish,” Hannibal agrees. He frames Will’s hips as his kisses dip to the small of his back, tongue tracing the stiff line of his tailbone, and when he stops, his breath is warm enough against Will that he shivers from it. For a moment, Hannibal remains just so, watching Will push his hips in a demanding effort for more, delighting in the blush that speckles scarlet all across Will’s body. He slips his hands to once more hold Will’s thighs and when he kisses again, the sound Will makes is almost enough to bring Hannibal to climax.

Weak and lilting and little, Will stretches one arm forward on the bed and grasps the sheets hard, as though to use them as an anchor to lever himself further, away from Hannibal’s mouth, though every little tilt pushes him back against Hannibal all the harder. Will squirms and whimpers, moans and whispers Hannibal’s name as though it were a prayer, over and over, adored and praised.

“Your tongue,” Will breathes, laughing and trembling when Hannibal obeys without a word, and Will slips his hand between his legs to hold hard against his cock. “God, don’t stop, please never stop…”

Will’s breathing hitches, stomach tight where he sucks it in, thighs spread wide and trembling as Hannibal consumes him as he had the first night, paying every ounce of attention to Will that he can spare, worshiping him. And when he moans, himself overcome, Will nearly sobs into the sheets.

“Please, Hannibal, please -”

Hannibal closes his lips against Will’s muscle, spreading his tongue across quivering skin, piercing into hotter depths. He lets go of his legs to hold his cheeks wider instead, pushing forward to keep his hips up, devouring Will as if he were ambrosia. He is, Hannibal thinks. He has never tasted anything so sweet as Will.

When he pulls away, it’s only to breathe - to allow his friend to breathe, for that matter - and grin, mouth slick with spit, hair untidy, and bare. They are young already, but younger still with each other, playful and bright. He hopes that never changes. He touches soft kisses to Will’s backside, following the plush, firm curve of it, teasing soft until Will whimpers, demanding.

“Is this what you have imagined for so long?” Hannibal muses, stroking his thumb across Will’s wet opening. “Wicked, Will, very wicked. I did not anticipate such naughtiness from someone so well-behaved.”

Will shivers and draws up one knee, pushing himself higher, stretching wider with the motion. In truth, he has only thought of this since Hannibal had done it to him, the sensation so spectacular he had not been able to forget it, shamefully stroking himself as one finger ventured between his legs to touch, gently, when he was imagining alone.

“Teach me, then, to be good,” Will teases, laughing when Hannibal presses an open-mouthed kiss to his thigh. He doesn’t know the reason Hannibal shivers as he does, he doesn’t know why his playful words pull such a visceral response from Hannibal, but when he nuzzles between Will’s cheeks again, the younger man laughs and squirms free, rolling onto his back and drawing his hands down his body to cover his cock, as though shy.

“Touch me this way,” he says instead, smiles when Hannibal leans in. “Hands first, as before.”

Hannibal’s eyes dart lower, but return to settle against Will’s gaze. He softens, in an instant, from the cold and distant young man that Will watched him become, a genuine and gentle wonder in his expression as he takes a moment just to breathe, to gather himself, and to watch.

Will feels his cheeks darken more, but his laughing attempt to turn again is caught by Hannibal, setting a hand to his wrist. He turns Will to his back and brings his knees up between his friend’s legs, holding him in place not by force but only by the way their bodies fit so perfectly together. Gently, he removes one of Will’s hands from across his groin. Slowly, he takes the other in hand to reveal him, but he stops.

His smile widens, devilish once more.

“I have always learned best by seeing first, and then repeating,” he suggests, brow raising in challenge.

Will’s blush brightens his eyes, widens them, and he watches Hannibal with an expression so utterly innocent and beautiful that it takes everything for Hannibal not to push him down and hold him, not to come right then, just from watching him this way.

“I -”

It would be a lie to say he can’t, he surely knows how, he can. He does, and has, often, embarrassingly often, since Hannibal had followed him home and kissed him, bared him and pushed into him.

He can.

And, slowly, Will bites his lip and does.

Eyes down as he strokes his fingers up over his cock, tickling in the gentleness of the touch, so sensitive already from rubbing against the bed, from Hannibal’s mouth on his ass just moments before. He’s slick already, and Will wraps his fingers around himself properly to stroke deliberately slow up to the head of his cock and back down again with a groan.

When Hannibal swears beneath his breath, it isn’t in English, but Will knows it all the same.

With his hands resting against Will’s knees, Hannibal watches. Every upward stroke forces him to draw a breath. Every time Will pushes his fist down against his cock, he sighs. Every part of Will is magnificent, worthy of attention, and Hannibal can’t decide where to settle his gaze. The scarlet head of Will’s cock as he clenches his fist around it, the way his stomach tightens into firm ridges when he curls his hips upward. The way his lips part on a trembling breath from the pleasure he brings himself or his eyes, hooded and heavy, that watch only Hannibal.

Before he can stop himself, before he can try to convince himself of his own dominance, Hannibal allows himself to be weak - because of Will, and for him. He slips his fingers around his own stiffness and cradles it in his palm, tugging in slow strokes to match Will’s movements, and watching rapt as his friend touches himself this way - as they both do, as if sex were not all but imminent but unknown to them in their innocence towards the other.

“Have you,” Hannibal breathes, “have you always preferred men?”

Will’s breathing stutters and his hips arch up higher, he presses his thighs against Hannibal where he still sits between them and bites his lip a little harder. With a grin he shakes his head, a quick, proud little flick to set his hair fanning out over the pillow. With a laugh, Will lets his lip go.

“I have… always thought of you. Of us.” It sounds so pathetic, childish in its naive nature, but Will cannot lie to Hannibal, not ever, and especially not here. “I’ve always preferred you.”

He twists his wrist and with a little fussy sound, tries to press his knees together, finding them stopped. He’s blushing hard, eyes barely open, body alive with energy and tension and sensation. It feels so good, so strangely good, to be able to pleasure himself and have such an effect on Hannibal at the same time. 

Carefully, Will draws down the foreskin, nearly sobbing with the feeling, and sets his thumb against the slit to gently rub back and forth until he’s trembling, until he’s leaking around his thumb and down his length again.

“What ab-” Will gasps, curls in on himself. “You?” he manages finally.

Hannibal ducks his head, squeezing around the tip of his cock to hold himself back. The sight of Will like this, open with him like he’s been for no one else, the sound of his hand across his cock and the short little breaths that snare as if startled by his own pleasure, the scent and the sensation of being able to touch himself so openly -

“I have,” Hannibal murmurs, “sought, at great length, too great perhaps, for a partner who understands me. Who does not want me for what my birth has entitled me, or the power that corresponds to it - who knows me as I am, truly. I have sought and failed to find, again and again, a beautiful man as gentle as he is striking. I have sought you without knowing it was you that I sought, so close to me for so long.”

Will whimpers, overcome, and sets his hand against his thigh, cock still twitching against his stomach, leaking over his skin. He is so close, would allow himself the release if he didn’t know how much better it would be with Hannibal pressed within him. He reaches out with his clean hand, grasping Hannibal’s hand, pulling it free to bring to his lips, to lick clean the musky, sticky fluid from it, to kiss it softly as his eyes seek up for Hannibal’s.

“What am I going to do with you?” Will whispers, so pleased, that his eyes are bright from it, his face flushed dark and lips parted before he gently sucks one of Hannibal’s fingers between them.

Hannibal’s breath leaves him all at once. If he had a hand against himself, any contact at all with his stiff cock, full and flushed and dripping against Will beneath, he would have lost all control of himself. He forces a swallow into his tight throat, and his lips part again on a desperate sigh, eyes wide as Will draws his finger into his mouth. He moans, helpless, when Will hollows his cheeks to suck. He cannot help but seek deeper, skimming his fingertip against Will’s tongue and shuddering until his toes clench tight in response.

“Anything,” Hannibal breathes. “Everything. I -”

His cheeks redden not only from the sweet exertions that Will shares with him, but from a certain rare shyness, too. Tongue pressed between his lips, he tries to speak again, and shakes his head, groaning low when Will touches his teeth to Hannibal’s skin.

“Inside you, somehow, please,” he begs, accent thickening, rolling heavy across his tongue. “Let me inside you again.”

Will moans softly as he releases Hannibal’s fingers and spreads his legs a little wider for him. He doesn’t know how to ask, not properly, not beautifully, so he shows instead, with little shivers and undulations, with bringing Hannibal’s hand down to press to his hole again as Will hums softly and makes a trembling little noise of pleasure.

“Felt so good,” he sighs, “last time.” Then he laughs, helpless and giddy, and presses a hand against his face before reaching for Hannibal to pull him down to kiss, deep, arching up against him, hungry, suddenly, in his demands. Nails dragging a little too hard against skin. “Felt so good I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t sit, not without feeling you there still. I touched every night hoping you would touch me again, so scared you wouldn’t. Please -”

Will paints pictures behind Hannibal’s eyes, his words skitter down Hannibal’s skin, they coil in his belly and fill his cock more, painfully more, with the thought of Will touching himself in that way, even alone, and moaning Hannibal’s name. He sighs against Will’s mouth, sinking into a deep kiss before drawing away only long enough to spit silently into his palm and slick his length.

Hannibal knows from his own experience that it isn’t enough, that olive oil would be less painful, but he won’t stop for this and he’s certain, if the slender hands fisted into his hair are anything to judge by, that Will would not allow him away for so long as to fetch it.

“Are you sure?” Hannibal asks, sneaking another kiss, and another, met each time with a widening smile from his friend, his lover, his beautiful Will.

“Please,” Will sighs again. He curls his body in a feline stretch up against Hannibal, who cannot deny him.

He presses, slow, a hand between them to guide himself against Will’s opening. Gentle thrusts to widen, to breach, and Will is so tight, so hot around him that Hannibal can hardly breathe at all. And when he is forcefully turned to meet Will’s mouth again - when powerful legs draw up around his waist to pull him deeper - Hannibal knows he is lost to Will’s desires.

He hopes, in being lost, that he is never found again.

Will holds him captive with his breathless sounds and little nuzzles, the endless presses of powerful muscle around his cock as Hannibal pushes deeper in, the slips of wet lips smearing against Hannibal’s cheek and over his jaw and down to his neck. Will is everything, he is trembling and restless, he is innocent and needy, he is beautiful - entirely beautiful.

And he wants Hannibal, and no other. Has wanted him for years.

It is unfathomable to Hannibal, still, that he had been so blind to it for so long. He is so glad that his eyes were opened, that he will never turn them away from him again.

The rhythm is stuttered, too quick and too shallow at times, groans pulled from them both when Hannibal presses deep and arches Will entirely from the bed until his fingers seek up against the headboard and curl around it to hold himself steady.

He is pulled taut and flushed dark, head turned aside as Will pants his pleasure against his arm, laughing when Hannibal turns him back, kissing him sloppily when he does. His legs are wrapped vice-tight around Hannibal’s hips, holding him close against him, urging him harder and deeper into himself, over and over until Will’s cries become high and helpless, Hannibal’s name carried on praise and curses alike.

He is wonderful. Beautiful and bright, sensual and shy, and for all the years lost between them that Hannibal imagines he will always mourn, right now it is as though they have never parted. Beyond the joining of their bodies, ecstatic though it is, their hearts are joined, their minds, they know the truth of the other to a depth that no other might ever hope to reach. Hannibal remembers Will climbing boldly into the branches of endless trees overhead, and offering him a hand. He recalls him stripping bare and barrelling off into the lake, laughing and calling for Hannibal to join him.

Will sees not the heir, the name, the status, the money. Hannibal sees not the dirt, the labor, the meager title, the scant holdings. They are friends, somehow, despite the distance that was forced between them. They are more than, as Hannibal presses deep into Will and shudders roughly, gasping against his mouth.

In the fierce, tight confines of Will’s body, Hannibal loses himself, spilling hot and sudden enough that the wind is knocked from him and he struggles to breathe. His cock pulses in time with his heart, again and again, his hips bucking mindless as if to reach the depths of his friend beneath him. He kisses him in apology, skin shining with sweat, a sheepish grin caught on his lips, and without pause, reaches between them to take Will roughly in hand.

It doesn’t take much, one firm twist, a pull and Will spills as surely against Hannibal as he had in his own little bed. Flushed bright with humiliation at having done it again, at having made such a mess between them, he is distracted quickly by the press of lips to lips, the nuzzling and protective arms that wrap so tight around him to hold him close, cherished, adored.

“Hannibal.” Will slips his own arms up into his hair, to caress and hold him, breath hitching when Hannibal tastes him from his fingers before kissing Will again. He is so glad that he does not have to be up with the dawn the next morning. He is so glad that he has the time to press to Hannibal, close, for hours and hours more.

He is glad that he will feel this again, soon, as he turns to his stomach and present to Hannibal that way, wanting to feel him in any way he can, as often as either can manage.

For now, though, he is contented to cuddle him, pressing soft lips to his cheek in innocent little kisses.

Hannibal pulls slowly from inside Will, hushing the little sounds of pain and protest. He curls heavily around him, half atop, arms and legs surrounding his friend to pull Will back against his chest. He has no mind at all for the mess, the sweat, the sheets tangled around them. He has no mind for anything but Will, and touching soft kisses to the back of his neck as they fit so perfectly together.

“Not only a guest,” Hannibal murmurs, lifting a hand to smooth Will’s curls from his face, and laughing low when Will turns towards him only to burrow close again. Their gentle exploration resumes, now that they are spent, fleeting fingers finding their way over dampened skin.

Hannibal kisses Will’s brow, and meets his smile for an instant before nuzzling into a kiss. And as their hearts settle to rest, he murmurs only, “What is mine is yours. Entirely yours.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Is it true what they say about London?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the incredible [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

“Is it true what they say about London?”

Hannibal glances from the corners of his eyes, away from the book held propped against his shoulder and towards the young man laying across the length of his body. Will’s arms are folded, his chin set on them, both bare in the privacy of the heir’s bedroom.

“What do they say about London?” Hannibal asks. “That it’s filthy, the streets full of manure and wastrels? That it reeks of cows on a good day, and far worse on a bad? Perhaps that among the fineries and shops, parks and museums, exist dens of iniquity of all varieties, and any number of means to lose one’s coinpurse? Wine, women, outright thievery...”

Will blinks at him, and grins, setting his teeth against his bottom lip.

“All true,” Hannibal assures him, setting a hand in Will’s soap-soft curls as he turns back to his book.

“And yet you go,” Will murmurs, ducks his head against Hannibal’s chest with a smile. The fingers splay and turn in his hair, tangle just enough to tug, for Will’s eyes to close in pleasure at the sensation of it.

“There is life there, as there is not in the country,” Hannibal replies. “Uncontrolled and pulsing, the very heart of humanity in all its fear and anger and gluttony.”

Will’s eyes narrow when they open, amused, still, by Hannibal’s need for the visceral and the grotesque. He is shameless in it, wallows in it, and it fascinates Will as much as it drives a cold fear into him. He doesn’t know if he could see such things with such indifference and from such a high post. He is one of them, he would be caught up in that same fever had he not been lucky enough to work for Lecter Estate.

He wonders if he should see, then, himself as he could have been.

“Will you take me?” Will asks, waiting for Hannibal to look up and holding his eyes when he does. “To the filthy streets and dens of iniquity?”

The request halts Hannibal’s hand, only for an instant but enough in that to still be noticed. Though he keeps his eyes trained to his book, his attention is fully focused on Will, gaze unmoving over the long lines of text.

“I would take you to the city,” Hannibal agrees to that, at least, twirling a finger slowly into a long curl before letting it bounce free. “There are wonderful restaurants we might visit, museums of all varieties. If you would allow the weeds to grow unabated for a weekend, we might enjoy a fine time together. There is a very nice hotel near the park. I would enjoy the opportunity to taste you on the sheets of such an enormous bed.”

Will’s entire body shivers, against his control, and color floods his cheeks, but he keeps his eyes on Hannibal, urges him to look back.

“That is not the London you just spoke of, to me,” Will tells him. “That is a London that uses the blood the heart beats to it. I want to see it live, Hannibal, I want to go where you go, in London.”

His misgivings are transparent now, allowed to appear although Will had already seen it so clearly. Doubt raises the muscles beneath dark eyes as Hannibal holds Will’s gaze for a moment, tongue parting his lips.

“You say that knowing not what you ask.”

“I’m not a child,” Will answers, and Hannibal’s lips press thin together, duly chastened.

“And if I do not wish for you to see me there? If I worry that you will look at me differently, knowing the company I keep,” he asks. “I can all but promise that whatever you’ve heard is true, and there is likely worse that goes unspoken. Does it satisfy you to know that? Must you see it yourself?”

Will considers for a moment the man’s genuine worry, his doubt not of Will but of himself - this entirely uncommon, considering how the man carries himself, how he always had, even as a child. Will pushes himself up on his elbows, slipping them to the bed so as not to crush Hannibal with his weight, and leans forward to kiss him, deep and slow.

He lingers before pulling away, eyes down to Hannibal’s lips before returning to his eyes.

“I want to see what makes you happy,” he admits. “Granted, your thrill-seeking may prove too much for my disposition but I wish to see. I want to know.” He smiles, nuzzles against Hannibal before resting back on his chest again. “There is nothing that would change my opinion of you. Desires do not define a man - actions do that more. And I have seen your actions prove you the man I know you are.”

Hannibal huffs a laugh, helpless, and lets his book slip closed to the bed without mind for whatever page he was on. He spreads his hands over his face, rubbing his palms against his eyes. “And when desires lead to actions?” He mumbles, muffled against his fingers before letting them slip to the bed, lax. “You will see a side of me that few enough have, and for good reason.”

“Lucky me then,” Will says, hiding his grin behind his arms as Hannibal relents. “Can we go then?”

“Insomuch as your disposition can bear it,” he agrees, sighing. “You will tell me, if you wish to leave? As soon as you do, tell me, and I will take you from there -”

“We’ve not even left bed yet,” laughs Will, and with a grumble, Hannibal holds Will around the waist and rolls him to his back, sucking little kisses against his throat.

“We need not, in truth -”

“You said, Hannibal.”

A hum, dismayed, but only mildly. There is something charming in the idea of it, beneath the rising panic at the thought of bringing someone so wholly innocent into such depravity. It appeals to the man in a prurient way, but beyond, it curls cold in his stomach.

He allows the feeling, and disperses it with a sigh against Will’s neck. “Tonight, then, before you give me time to make excuses as to why we cannot.”

\---

They take a room in the hotel Hannibal spoke of, overlooking the park and the lights beyond. The bed is, to Will’s flushed pleasure, truly enormous. And as hard as it is to immediately resist Hannibal pressing him down to it, he does. Raising his eyebrows at the man to remind him that they came here for other frivolities.

In truth, he is as nervous, almost close to changing his mind as Hannibal is. But there is some desire, base and never before allowed forth, that calls to him to see. He wonders if this is the voice that dictates Hannibal’s choices and his freedoms, if it is that which defines his desires as what they are.

Will can feel his throat clench and his heart beat quick, but he does not back down his cause, and they leave the room together, dressed as they had come, and Will does not comment on the riding crop Hannibal folds discreetly beneath his arm. He does consider it, however, further, when they do not mount horses to ride to their location, but take another carriage, down from the lush and clean parts of the city to those that Will can smell before he sees.

The heart of London. The place Hannibal goes when he is not lazing bored in the study over books or a sketch, or working with Will to train his dog to his side.

“Are there actually cows in the city, proper?” Will asks as the carriage rattles over the road.

Hannibal sets the back of his hand against his nose as if it might somehow ease the thickening air, fetid with humanity, and watches past the drapes that hang against the windows. “Many. Some would call it a small discomfort for fresh cream each morning. Those who live alongside them would likely disagree.”

The glistening buildings of the finer city, tall and shining in the perpetual mist shrouding the city, give way to tenements stacked unsteadily against each other, as if leaning towards the other for support. Beneath, food shops offer cheap lunches and pints to workers from the docks, their windows blurred with grease and smoke. Other establishments are entirely windowless, dark doors hiding the interiors, as women with ankles bare call to the uptown carriage as they pass.

As the carriage begins to slow, clicking against cobblestones, Hannibal savors their last moment of privacy. He leans across the plush bench and with gloved fingers set beneath Will’s jaw, draws him near enough to kiss. Just a touch of lips together, tender, and a nuzzle against the younger man’s cheek before the door is opened for them to disembark.

The building is no different than dozens of others passed, yet no loiterers or drunks bar the pavement before it. Indeed, even the pavement itself appears unusually clean, bricks set neatly in place and still red rather than blackened as the others to either side of the building. Hannibal appears little concerned despite the overt danger of the area for one dressed in a black velvet frockcoat and scandalously tight breeches that leave nothing to the imagination. The crop remains tucked under his arm as Hannibal raises his hands to Will’s cheeks, meeting his eyes.

“You are not a member, but you are a guest,” Hannibal says softly. “Moreover, you are my guest, and have you mind to go unmolested - which I would prefer - you would do well to stay near me. It is unlikely that the gentlemen here would lay a hand on you unwarranted, but as the night goes on, inhibitions lower.”

He swallows, and attempts a wan smile. “Asking names will make them suspect. You will recognize men here - pretend that you do not. All are equal within. And if anyone asks, and I am not there, the answer to ‘what may I do’ is ‘ _fais ce que tu voudras_ ’. Alright?” Hannibal asks, stroking his thumb over Will’s cheek.

Will nods, committing the words to memory, though his French is far from fluent, closer to the broken dialect his father had once taught him, and little else. He repeats the words once, for Hannibal, and watches the man’s eyes close in deliberate restraint. Whatever they mean, Will is certain they grant permission for all kinds of things. But beyond saying no, he has no way to deflect such an approach.

And he had asked to come here.

He stands for a moment as Hannibal lets him go, before straightening his shoulders and following the man inside.

It is dark, here, not enough to draw on fear, but enough to make the eyes adjust. A dim reddish glow from covered lamps, smells of scented oils and leather are thick in the air, and a smell Will recognizes immediately that widens his eyes and thins his lips in worry. Blood. Not copious amounts but enough to race his heart, enough for the small hairs at the back of his neck to stand on end.

He does not ask Hannibal where he had brought him, he has heard stories enough, and imagines that it is from this entry alone that people assume they have come, as Dante, through to Hell.

He allows his coat and hat to be taken without argument, does not know where to put his hands except behind his back so he does, eyes up to Hannibal for reassurance and guidance as much as devotion and obedience. He finds the man’s smile is slow to come not because he does not wish to show it but because he has to temper a much darker version of the expression before he directs it at Will.

Hannibal’s overcoat is left, and he cuts a sleek figure in the darkness. Below his chin sits an ornately fluffed and folded cravat. The black velvet tailcoat hugs tight to his frame, its pristine fabric shimmering in the low lights, the trousers beneath so snug that it’s a wonder he can walk in them. Tall boots more appropriate for riding shine like oil as he strides down a winding hallway, past portraits of regal, stern faces that all seem to carry a sly smile in their eyes.

The ramshackle exterior betrays nothing of the luxury inside. Gleaming wood floors and low ceilings, gas lamps flickering against the wall. An array of couches in dark jewel tones and tables between, upon one of which burns a light for the opium pipe beside. From this center room, hallways span out in every direction, as if they stand now at the center of a spider’s web.

“The Hellfire Club,” Hannibal intones with a sigh and a settling, that eases his shoulders and raises his chin.

Will’s eyes take in everything they can, and even so he considers that perhaps he is only seeing the outward display only, not the intricacies between the cracks.

“Oh,” he sighs, quiet, small, standing close to Hannibal because he has nowhere else to go, because he remembers the words of warning outside and has taken them - rightfully - to heart. Though in the center room little happens, Will can feel the tension that leaves Hannibal seep into him. There is power, here, there is power understood and shared and given here, and people like Hannibal hold it in their palms for people like Will to see, pine for, and never have.

It is frightening. It is exhilarating.

Around them, more and more men come and go, between corridors, through them and out. Some to the rooms beyond, others stopping beside one to look in, expressions softening, smiles sharpening. Their demeanor changes from gentlemen to predators watching a kill, or a torment of their prey. Will swallows thick, steps up beside Hannibal and knows, somehow, instinct perhaps, to not lean against him here.

So he holds his chin high and his eyes straight, hands behind his back still in deference to the man beside him who fingers the crop in his hand with apparently unconscious motions.

“Shall we walk?” Will asks him softly, unsure as to what to say, if to speak at all. A man lets his eyes rest on Will as he passes, slinking down his chest and to between his legs and back up again, expression hungry, wanting, yet - as Hannibal had predicted - he does not outwardly approach or seek to touch.

“Where do they go?” Will asks, perhaps to himself, as his first question has gone unanswered.

“Seeking satisfaction,” Hannibal answers, “by whatever means most appeals to them.”

He places a hand at the small of Will’s back to move him gently forward, and they assume a slow stroll, past a well-stocked bar, behind it a man who seems to look past the gentlemen of the club as if there’s no one there at all. Hannibal chooses a hallway seemingly at random, speaking low.

“It is a rare place in which there is little concern for the legalities of the outside world. Populated as it is by those who make the laws of church and state, within they are free to break them as they please. Or, more accurately, hold them suspended beyond the doors. Women are allowed in only under scrutiny and close attention of the member who brought them, and there are areas barred to all but known members. It takes little effort to find society of high birth eager to come here and exhaust themselves. Though no one dare speak its name, they wish to be here, as if by doing so they too might elevate themselves further,” Hannibal snorts mildly. “Social climbers too naive to realize that when the evening is over, so too is their time here.”

Doors space evenly down the hall, and as if on cue, a volley of noise erupts from the room beside them. Cries of ecstasy, pain and pleasure in equal measure, loud enough for Will to force his mouth closed rather than gape in surprise. His cheeks warm, and Hannibal smiles softly to see it.

“It is early still,” he says, stepping a little further to a cracked door, and reaching with his crop to press it open further. There is, thankfully perhaps, no one within the room. A bastardization of bedroom and dungeon, manacles and all manner of questionable implements hanging on stone walls, a bed as plush as the one in their hotel.

“Perhaps you think this very dull,” muses Hannibal. “The wealthy trying to alleviate their boredom through blasphemy. It seems predictable, does it not?”

Will’s heart pounds in his ears and he swallows, gently shaking his head. He can say little, if anything at all, what can he say when faced with this? Everything in here, a sin, every man in here, a sinner. It is hellfire indeed, there is no other word. From the room beside, Will hears a whistle, too sharp to be produced by lips, and a cry immediately following, plaintive and pleading, pain shuddering the voice to helpless panting and he closes his eyes. Perhaps they should go home. Perhaps this is not for him to see, for him to know. Perhaps he is not like them. Nothing like them.

He opens his eyes and turns, as though to leave the room and finds that another hand grasps it before he can reach to touch, from outside, and a boy, no older than Will, younger, even, perhaps, looks at him with wide eyes and parted lips.

“I apologize, I did not realize the room was -” His accent is thick, one that speaks of slums and poor upbringing, and his skin is pale, from lack of healthy air and sunlight, not from deliberate avoidance of the outdoors. Will watches as the boy seeks behind him, watches his eyes widen and darken seeing Hannibal there. And all at once, like a marionette, the boy settles against the doorframe and bites his lip.

“I didn’t think you would come back,” he sighs, and Will turns to see Hannibal’s expression set in that amused, dark smirk he had so hard tried to settle before.

“You are far from enough to drive me away.”

“I couldn’t walk for three days after you,” the boy purrs, one arm sliding down between his legs to stroke, obvious and entirely unashamed.

“Pity,” Hannibal murmurs. “I had hoped a week. You are interrupting. Perhaps I did not teach that mouth well enough to be mannered, last time. I will not make the same mistake.”

“There’s room enough for three.” The boy shrugs, teeth working over his lip again. He is entirely wanton, entirely open to anything that goes on here, and Will envies him the freedom, watches the way he coils and bends, imagines what Hannibal had done to incapacitate him so and shivers. “And he is so pretty,” the boy adds, eyes to Will now. “You always know how to find us.”

“You think so highly of yourself,” Hannibal notes, a pluck of warning in his words that draws a wide smile from the insolent boy. A long step brings him closer, another, in an instant unlike Will has ever seen him. He can only compare the movement to a cat stalking birds in the yard, powerful movements carefully restrained.

“You thought highly enough of me.” The boy moves to take a step in return but Hannibal brings the crop up swiftly between them, set against his bare, pale chest.

Slowly, he drags the flap of black leather upward, over the boy’s throat, and settles it beneath his chin, raising it. In response, the younger man shivers and goes still, watching Hannibal wide-eyed and making no further movements towards him or away.

“Who are you with?” Hannibal asks. The boy lifts a brow, amusement dancing in his eyes, and Hannibal rolls his own with a snort. “Where is the man who brought you here?”

“Asleep. Too much drink. He couldn’t even make himself stiff for me.”

“Shame,” says Hannibal. “And so you sought to wander, then. Unaccompanied. Don’t you know what we do to little lost boys who stray into the woods?”

“ _Fais ce que tu voudras_ ,” the boy replies, whisper harsh and eyes wide. Will finds himself frozen, as though not even here at all, watching a scene play out in the theatre, two actors so completely engrossed in their roles that even a standing ovation couldn’t pull them back to the now. 

He knows what will happen without knowing how he does. He knows the minute the crop lifts that it will paint a sharp line of red across the boy’s cheek. Knows that despite the little whimper of pain, the boy turns back, heat in his cheeks, fire in his eyes.

Will knows, because he can feel that same pulse of need within himself, he knows because he suddenly wants nothing more than that leather against his skin. The club, the men within it, are nothing. All Will knows and wants to know is the man here, now, who stands so proud and so in control, and so indifferent in causing another such pain.

“Will.” 

He blinks, rapidly, and tries to slow his breathing as Hannibal looks at him.

“Come with us.”

Without another look, Hannibal grasps the boy around the back of the neck, hard enough, it seems, to draw a hiss of breath and a curse through it. Hannibal drags the boy bodily from the room, and the little thing goes willingly, stumbling and grasping at the man, begging him in sweet little sounds for more, for anything, for _other_. Will goes because he cannot stand still. He goes because Hannibal had told him to, and in that tone, in that voice, he could tell Will to seek a path from the tallest tower and he would go.

They move to the main circle once more, the center of the web. The boy is dropped to the floor, his own lack of balance, not Hannibal’s strength, takes him down to his knees.

“Stray puppies must learn their place,” Hannibal tells him, the words met with a laugh until his crop finds the boy’s back and he shivers in his pleasure instead. “Must find their new owner, if their old is so careless as to let them wander.”

Hannibal looks up, at the men gathered, some smoking, others masked, some as bare as the boy on the floor before them all, already having satisfied themselves or seeking to find more tastes and pleasures.

“This insolent thing may go to any who claim it,” Hannibal says, voice echoing enough to send Will’s heart to his throat. “And any may have it before they make a choice.”

It is a slow descent, like vultures circling, knowing their victim will not go far before it’s taken. And this boy, still, shows no fear of them, but rather a boiling hunger for it. He directs a look over his shoulder at Hannibal, disappointment and heat there for being rejected so publicly, when perhaps last time he had been welcomed into a hot bed and tied with silk for his pleasure.

He turns only when a hand seeks his chin to turn him, parts his lips for the kiss that meets him and moans, obscene and loud. More hands find his hair, seek over skin, and down to his loose pants to pull them free, to bring the boy to his knees to touch him as he trembles and balances, turning from one man to another as he’s tasted and passed on, as hands grow less gentle and harsher, pulling him one way or another, until he is claimed by sheer tenacity alone and led away, stumbling and hard, and already forgetting Hannibal’s slight on him.

“You bring us two?” One man asks Hannibal, tilting his head and regarding Will behind him, still flushed red, hair in wild curls around his head. “I’d lay the claim to that one before anyone else could. You can smell the innocence on him.”

Hannibal’s jaw tightens, a microcosm of the possessiveness that brightens dark eyes. He eases tension into a smile, however faint. “I’m afraid just the one for tonight, and he seems to be occupied,” Hannibal notes, glancing down the hallway where the boy was carted off. “He should be free in a few hours, although whether you’ll desire him then -”

“And this one?”

“He is not one of them,” Hannibal responds, the snap of his crop echoed in the clipped words. “Begging pardon for any misunderstanding, but you would do well to breathe elsewhere if the smell of him is so overpowering. He is mine,” Hannibal says simply, “and not for the taking.”

“It’s unbecoming not to share with fellow members, Hannibal,” the man reminds him. The scolding is mildly spoken enough, but the use of his name out loud is like a slap, and Will watches as Hannibal’s fingers tighten just a little around the crop’s woven handle.

“And yet it is entirely like me, magistrate. I am nothing if I am not inherently selfish in all that I do, self-serving to an absolute. I have little care for the preservation of others or their reputations,” he adds, consonants clicking. “And there is less still what I would not do to defend what I have claimed, already, as my own.”

The silence is broken only by the muffled sounds of other occupants in the rooms beyond, choked cries and long moans, whimpered pleas and strikes of every and any implement. Then the magistrate’s eyes narrow, his smile lengthens, and he inclines his head towards Hannibal, and then, strangely, towards Will as well.

“Next time, perhaps,” he says, and though Hannibal snarls quietly at him that he will not see the day, the words are addressed entirely towards Will, standing stock still and trembling from what he had witnessed. He does not doubt the man’s intentions, nor his determination. But just as that, he does not doubt Hannibal’s possessiveness and ability to keep his word.

He does not turn to follow Hannibal when he goes, returning to the room they had been interrupted in - he watches the men still gathered. Powerful men, judges and journalists and men of parliament. Men who are older than he by decades, others who are younger, but more vicious in their intent. He sees in them the wolves and bears and hyenas of humanity, as Hannibal does, he supposes. And he feels his blood rush hot in his ears once more as he’s tugged gently back by his sleeve, and manages only to bite his lip, narrow his eyes, at the men still watching, who had not gone back to their pipes or their play.

He follows Hannibal as he leads him, but he does not see them. Not the man’s back, not the corridors or hanging lamps, he does not care for the doors they pass or the sounds from behind, he cares for nothing but the pulse in his veins and the howling in his ears.

The room is still empty for them, no one yet to occupy it, and as Hannibal closes the door behind them both, already hissing apologies into the air thick with sex and sweat and sin, Will steps to him and presses up against him in a rough kiss. He is shaking, enough that Hannibal’s hands grip him to make sure they can hold, reassure, keep him near, but Will pulls back with a soft sound of need, a click in his throat, and watches Hannibal from how close he’s standing.

“This is what you do,” he sighs, seeks in Hannibal’s face a denial, another apology, and finds the man is helpless to either, too surprised by Will’s response. So Will smiles, one hand seeking down to grasp Hannibal’s wrist, the hand that still holds the crop, and turns it, lifts it, sets the soft leather of the crop beneath his chin, as Hannibal had held the boy moments before.

“ _Fais ce que tu voudras_ ,” Will tells him.

“Will,” Hannibal whispers, in place of all the apologies he might say instead, or excuses he could make. He sets a hand to his friend’s cheek and rests their brows together, eyes closing. Just a moment, just a breath, to somehow reconcile who he is when he is here, and who he is when he is with Will. The two halves should have never met, the latter remaining firmly outside these doors, but here he stands, some confusion of a whole, breathing in the distant scent of roses and tasting Will’s lips touched softly to his own.

And still he holds the flat end of the crop beneath Will’s chin.

They should not have come. Not only to allow Hannibal the separation of himself, but because of what Will seemingly allows him now, so sweetly sincere that it wrings Hannibal’s breath from his lungs. For what scant credit it affords him, the eldest Lecter has never imagined doing to his friend what he does to the forgettable boys here. He has thought of spoiling him, treating him to all the luxuries that Hannibal has enjoyed alone for so long, introducing him to wonderful places and exotic foods.

He has never considered striking him.

He has never considered binding him down.

And now, as Will’s fair blue eyes darken with newfound desires, Hannibal can think of nothing more.

He sets gloved fingers in place of the crop, keeping Will’s chin lifted as lamplight scatters shadow across his features. Slowly, down his neck and chest and belly, Hannibal drags the crop, and his lips part on a taut sigh as he snaps it once against Will’s thigh.

The pain is brief, a flare of fire that then seeps to Will’s skin and makes itself at home. It is unexpected and new, enough to part his lips wider, to hood his eyes further, cheeks still radiating heat as he gently bites his lip and shifts, one foot, then the other, to stand wider, to hold his balance as Hannibal raises his chin further, as he steps from under Will’s weight to hold his own.

“They ask you for this,” Will murmurs, closes his eyes briefly as the crop connects again, still just a sharp jolt of reminder, not genuine hurt. “They beg you for this, and you give it to them.”

The crop slides to the insides of Will’s thighs now and he shakes harder, still unmoving, as captivated as the boy had been, being held this way. Will doesn’t know if he wants genuine pain, he doesn’t know if he wants to have his voice carry through the walls and doors. All he knows is that when that boy had turned, just before he had been snared and kissed and molested for his beauty, Will had wished it was him kneeling on that floor.

“Please?” He asks.

Hannibal draws a breath as if struck himself by the word. He has become accustomed to Will’s observations, encouraging him to speak until he began to do so freely, sharing thoughts at great length about all the facets of their lives together and apart, sourcing wisdom from his work and his quiet attention to everyone, everything around him. His mind is a beautiful place, untarnished by the spoils of wealth that in the end leave one only ravenous.

As intimately as they know the other’s body, Hannibal seeks to understand his mind, and to free the voice that Will has for too long kept quiet. This, he supposes, is no different than any other new experience.

“Please what?” Hannibal asks gently. Curling beneath his words is the rumbling purr of the great cat that Will watched before in this room, an illicit danger to spirit if not to body.

“Please,” Will swallows, cheeks fiery red, “strike me again.”

Hannibal’s smile draws up his eyes and he steps back, hips shifting beneath brazen breeches, his cock trapped half-hard beneath and shockingly outlined. He runs his hand along the length of the crop, and circles to Will’s side, as if appraising him. After all, it is - as with everything - a matter of proper carriage.

The crop claps hard against Will’s backside, though Hannibal is hardly giving him the treatment he gave the needy little thing summarily dismissed shortly before. It is still enough to sting, to curl Will’s lips for a moment over his teeth.

With the crop and a cant of his head, Hannibal points towards not the bed - filthy, and no place for his friend - but to a large table used for no less nefarious purposes, in truth.

“Go and bend. Bring your trousers to your knees. If this is how you will have me, then you will have me entirely.”

Will’s cheeks grow, if possible, redder, and he watches Hannibal with parted lips before moving to obey, near tripping on himself to do so. He knows he should be more graceful, wonders how he can teach himself to move like that boy had, feline and coy, not fearing the pain but craving it. Will does not fear the pain. Not yet. He has never experienced this before, in such a way, and it excites him more than he can say.

So he goes. Step after little step to the table he faces like a misbehaving student before his teacher. The thought alone makes Will shiver, as he brings his hands down to work the buttons of his pants, the belt. He hesitates in drawing them down, though Hannibal has seen him entirely bare, now. He hesitates because he does not know this game, he does not know its rules.

But he does, at length, obey, pushing his pants, his underwear, down to his knees as told. He sets his hands to the table and swallows when the flat of the crop presses between his shoulders and guides him lower. So he goes. Shivering more when it follows, slides down his spine to rest in the curve of his back, forcing him to arch, elbows to the table, his backside exposed.

“Ask me again.” Hannibal tells him. And Will swallows thickly, as much to cover his nervous laugh as to wet his throat.

“Please,” he says softly, “strike me again.”

Hannibal allows a small sound, but only just, and rests the flat of the crop against the curve where Will thighs end. The leather rubs cool enough to make him shiver, and Hannibal waits until he hears a breath taken in before bringing the crop down with a firm clap against bare skin. It jiggles delightfully, and Hannibal watches the tension strike like lightning up the younger man’s thighs. From shocked white to red, the square mark blossoms into color, and Hannibal listens as Will’s breathlessness becomes a laugh, just a small one.

“I have never been so satisfied by a single strike,” Hannibal murmurs. He runs his palm down the curve of Will’s back, humming as his friend presents his hips higher when Hannibal reaches his tailbone with fingertips covered in soft buckskin.

With a smile, Hannibal asks softly, “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”

Will just shivers, shakes his head, smile entirely impossible to hide now, taking over his face, his eyes, his very bend of his entire form. He is ecstatic, delighted, confused in the most miraculous way. He can feel the beginnings of his pulse where the crop had struck, and he wants to feel more. Harder. Hotter.

“It hurts,” Will admits, and briefly glances over his shoulder at Hannibal with bright eyes and his lip between his teeth. “That boy was blind with lust for what you did to him,” Will murmurs, and he finds that jealousy only barely tints the words, warms them with challenge instead. “Will you show me what he craved so much?”

He can feel himself hard, already, from what he had seen, from what he could hear, from the things he has imagined of himself and Hannibal, here, together. Will shivers again and shifts his hips back and forth. Another swat brings Will’s lips open on a little sound of pain, thighs tensing and body shivering before he relaxes again, bends back again.

“Would you have dragged me from them had they tried to claim me, there?” Will asks him quietly, knowing his answer, wanting to hear it.

“Tooth and nail,” Hannibal seethes, lip curled past his teeth in a snarl at the thought of it. “Miserable wretch had no right or claim to you, less still to speak to me as if I’m of lesser station. I could have him removed for using my name. I may still, magistrate or not. I’d have drawn blood had he come a step closer.”

The words fall fast, hissing possessive, and only ease into a slow and curious appreciation for how low Will’s lashes have draped across his eyes, how wide his lips from hearing his friend’s ardent declarations. He forces his heart to ease, find a slower tempo, and curls a hand along Will’s cheek to feel him nuzzle against it.

“You are free to do what you please. I would not keep that from you. But it would be your choice,” he murmurs. “Not theirs.”

Blue eyes blink wide as Will rubs the corner of his mouth over Hannibal’s gloved fingers, a question that does not need to be asked but Hannibal answers anyway.

“I have no wish to share you with anyone. As for the boy,” he smiles, wry, and in sweeping Will’s unruly hair back from his face, he twists his fingers tighter in it. The bend in Will’s back deepens, hips higher and feet spreading. Gentle and firm all at once, Hannibal bends Will back with the same precision he uses when practicing dressage, and sets his hips against his backside.

Hannibal whispers simply, “Let me hear you.” The crop pivots in skilled fingers, downward facing now as it would be were he astride a horse, and he snaps it hard, now, truly against Will’s thigh.

Will manages a gasp of pain, trying to instinctively move away and finding himself pinned. Forward, and arched and spread, but pinned. Fingers in his hair hold him in such a way that his lips cannot press together to even hold the sounds back if he was trying. Hannibal barely gives him time to breathe before he strikes him again, and now Will can feel it as genuine pain, as that sharp ember of heat beneath his skin that doesn’t go away, and he moans.

Shivers.

Squirms back against Hannibal, forward to try and free himself.

Cries out with another strike and opens his eyes when Hannibal twists his hand in his hair to make him.

“So many boys come in here,” Hannibal says, setting the crop against Will’s back as he leans closer. “Brought in from the streets, from home, from anywhere such beautiful things live.” The crop lands on unmarred skin on Will’s other thigh and his cry near-echoes in the room from it, the pain tensing every muscle in his body, panting his breath, widening his eyes. “And all of them need to be broken in.”

Two sharp slaps against Will’s skin and he begs, a little plea, just one, but it’s enough, already, to darken his skin further, to widen his smile when Hannibal leans in to look at him, so close that their eyes remain hooded to see each other.

“Please?”

“More?” Will breathes.

Hannibal rocks forward, just enough to press his cock against Will’s scarlet cheeks. The skintight breeches stretch near to breaking, a spot darkening where the pressure has brought his length to dripping. He rubs once, twice, and satisfied enough by this, loosens his grip in Will’s hair to press his hand around his throat instead.

“It’s always the quiet ones who learn quickest,” Hannibal whispers, and Will’s struggle to adjust to the strained position, Hannibal’s weight across his back, the heat of his thighs and hardness of his cock earns him only a swift crack of the crop for his trouble. “The ones who carry on are all noise and no show, like a horse that’s learned to root at the bit. As if by volume alone they might please, and in turn ease their discomfort.”

Even the soft leather of Hannibal’s gloves scrapes hot when he turns his palm against Will’s tender thigh, and the flinch earns him another swat to the opposite side.

“I have no more patience for noisy boys than I do stroppy horses. When a certain behavior is sought, the clever ones will learn their cues by body language alone, without need for even words. The headstrong ones are merely exhausting.”

Will’s arms are shaking where they hold him up, and his eyes are closed. Lips parted on heavy breaths and little sounds of pain pulled from him with every whip of the crop against him. He wonders if there will be marks. He wonders if there will be bruises and welts, if he will feel these as he shifts and bends in the garden.

He hopes he does.

He whimpers when the crop just strokes him, a promise of pain masked in gentleness, and presses his lips together. He is so hard he can barely contain it, aroused entirely by this, by Hannibal’s words, his actions, the rough way he handles him.

He wants to ask him what he wants, and give it to him. He wants to please, but do it without needing guidance. He wants to learn.

He slips one hand down between his legs to touch, shaking little gasps as just his fingertips bring another slick drop from the tip.

Hannibal rewards him with a kiss, lingering against his shoulder. It is precisely the sort of insouciance that he would not tolerate from one of the lesser boys that drapes around this place. It would earn a stern caning and perhaps a length of ribbon, to ensure their lesson is learned by turning their member scarlet and throbbing.

But Will is not a lesser boy, he is - and has always been - Hannibal’s dearest friend. His only, in truth, beyond the family, and so special treatment should be afforded. He runs his hand down Will’s side, up across his ribs again to rest against his arm, crop held still for now. Resting his forehead against the back of Will’s neck, fingers splayed across his jaw, he allows a smile, words gentled and hips shifting slow to grind their bodies together.

“Do you recall how we used to chase each other, fighting with green branches until our legs were livid with it?”

He traces his fingertips over Will’s lips, and without warning, brings the crop down against him again, unrestrained now in his strength, holding back only in his timing.

“Perhaps something we both desired,” he considers, lifting his head to kiss Will’s hair, arching him back just a little further, to the point of near-pain. “But could not yet understand.”

Will makes a sound like a sob, and Hannibal kisses against his cheek, up to the corner of his eye before whipping him again, harder, enough to jerk Will’s entire form and pull his voice high. The hand between his legs strokes faster now, unable to control the desperate need for relief, from the pain, for more of it, from the pressure in his body for this.

He feels like he has just awakened, and that this life, pedantic and slow and sheltered, had been a bad dream.

Will does sob, in earnest, when Hannibal strikes him again, and his plea comes thick and wavering, thin strings of spit between his lips as he parts them, still rocking back against Hannibal’s cock, forward into his own hand. Will is shaking, he is weak in it, so, so close, and unable, now, to even form words to ask for more, and this, and please, Hannibal, please.

“I’m going t-” Will whimpers, drawing in a long breath to sob it free again. “I’m -”

He can feel his cock pulsing in his palm, from just this, and he tenses entirely, holding back just a little more, just one more strike, just one more -

“Beautiful,” Hannibal whispers, and when leather meets skin, his friend shudders beneath him. Gasping silent, body rigid, it is only by the weight of Hannibal’s body over his that Will remains standing. He releases Will’s throat to let him breathe freely, stroking warmly down his side, over trembling legs, across his belly to where he grips himself, dripping through his fingers to the floor beneath.

Hannibal skims his fingertips over Will’s hand, just enough to feel the leather dampen, before bringing it almost delicately to his lips, tongue curling against the expensive material, made all the sweeter with Will’s release upon it.

The crop is set to the table, and with little regard for his own prominent erection, Hannibal snares his arms around Will’s middle in a fond embrace, nuzzling between his shoulders.

“I do not deserve you,” he murmurs.

Will is dizzy with release. He had felt his entire body give out when Hannibal had put his mouth to him, had seen stars when he had Hannibal above him, pressing in and kissing promises against his neck. It had felt exquisite, with every new discovery, but this… this has emptied Will entirely of all thought. He is only sensation and vibration and air.

He closes his eyes and smiles when Hannibal kisses the dampness from his cheeks, he didn’t even know it was there, too overcome to notice.

“You put too much worth on me,” Will murmurs softly, licking his lips and keeping one between his teeth for a moment before letting it go. “I want no other but you.”

And this, Will thinks, this, again, please. The sin of it, the depravity. He can feel the way his thighs ache with the pain, and he wants more of it, he wants to feel his cock harden again.

“I want so many things at once,” Will laughs, breathless. “I want you.”

“You have me,” Hannibal promises, lips brushing soft against his dear friend’s back. “All of me now, the me of the country and the me of the city, as you wished it.”

Still the warm touches continue. Still the soft strokes over shuddering skin. Still the heat of his breath, the steady beat of his heart. He is present, enraptured entirely in Will’s startling and wonderful transformation. This, the side of him that no wastrel in the club could ever earn, adoring and reverent and utterly endeared to his friend, his gardener, his Will.

“You have spoiled me now,” he whispers, conspiratorial and sly. “I will wish you in all places at once with me, and suffer displeasure when you are not. How could anyone else hope to fill your place beside me?”

Will grins, slow and languid and entirely in love. He shifts, just a little, and Hannibal steps back so Will can straighten, arching his back with a long pleased groan, before bending to pull his pants back up, hissing at the pain, as he does. He is pleased, entirely pleased, with what he had seen, what he had felt Hannibal do to him, what he knows he has done to Hannibal with asking for this, with taking it, and with enjoying it, most of all.

He turns to Hannibal again, pressing close to kiss him, one hand down to touch between his legs and feel Hannibal shift into the hold, hard and wet and wanting it.

“We should go,” Will whispers, moving to stroke his thighs instead, teasing. “Back to our room, to the big bed and the quiet to disrupt.” He smiles, pushing up on his toes to lean closer and whisper against Hannibal’s ear. “You wanted to taste me, there,” he reminds him. “And I want to see how many ways you can think of turning me in that bed to feel you.”

He is an absolute delight.

Hannibal’s eyes narrow as if in suspicion, but in their dark depths Will sees only a resounding pleasure, even the man bemoans, “You will make me take the carriage all the way back in such a state?”

Will draws a breath, draws in his brows, but his fluster is kissed away quickly as Hannibal smiles against his mouth.

“I can learn a great deal about cruelty from you,” Hannibal teases, reaching to gather his crop from the table. Shamelessly in Will’s sway, he follows him, their hands joined, his pants painting a torrid clarity of Will’s teasing. And whether they’re noticed or not, Hannibal pays it no mind. He cares little for the drama of the place now, the myth and truth of it all, depravity and debauchery and blasphemy. Damn the Hellfire Club, for now.

There are far more worthwhile pursuits at hand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Gentle but firm.” Will nods, smiling sweetly when Hannibal gives him a look. “You seem to have no trouble at all mingling the two with me. Remember, you are the better man. Tell him.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by the ever-vigilant [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

“You have to be firm with him.”

“Moments ago you told me to be gentle.”

“Gentle but firm.” Will nods, smiling sweetly when Hannibal gives him a look. “You seem to have no trouble at all mingling the two with me. Remember, you are the better man. Tell him.”

He watches as Hannibal laughs, sighs and shakes his head before lifting his chin again and staring down his opponent. A breath, another, and Hannibal swallows.

“Come here.”

A whine is the only sound he gets in return, the little pup plonked down on his bottom, back legs splayed out and front ones balancing him as his tail does everything it can to topple him to the plush carpet of Hannibal’s bedroom. He doesn’t seem to want to heed the command at all, or do anything, really, beyond yelp happily and wag his tail faster when Hannibal frowns at him.

Hannibal puffs out a sigh, and folds his hands behind his back. Straightening his shoulders to pull himself tall and regal in his stiff, high collar and long-tailed coat, he clears his throat and tries again.

“Come.”

Will, to his great credit, trains a laugh down to only a scarcely twitching smile that Hannibal stalwartly ignores.

“Laelaps,” Hannibal declares, firm enough in voice that Will bites his lip to stop a shiver. “Come to me.”

The puppy rises to his feet, watching between Will and Hannibal, tail beating a furious rhythm. Hannibal’s eyes widen and he holds his breath. After so many attempts, perhaps, finally -

Laelaps goes to Will. Bounding on big puppy paws, he whines and conjures up a half-growl, half-yelp, pummeling Will’s shoes with his paws in his fervor to clamber up onto the couch where Will sits half-reclined. Hannibal sighs, all his breath all at once, and his noble posture weakens to a slight slump.

“Perhaps he resents the name,” Hannibal considers aloud. “Pup. Hound. Beast, come to me.”

The little creature yaps again and sits back down on his bottom at Will’s feet, turning his head and lolling tongue to Hannibal before rolling onto his side and lifting his paw for a tummy rub. He is still a calm dog, still more prone to resting at someone’s feet and cuddling up than racing around the house or the fields outside. But he is a very stubborn thing.

Perhaps, Will thinks, but does not say, a little dull. But he can see the fondness Hannibal has for him despite that. The way he coddles the little creature warms Will’s heart. He watches Hannibal chew his lip before sinking into a graceful feline crouch and setting his hand to the floor, palm up.

“Come,” he says again, watching the little puppy wriggle his paws before attempting to clumsily rock himself back up enough to get his feet under him. It takes a moment, but then he moves, bounding joyfully to Hannibal and dropping to his side before him so he can get his due tummy rubs for obedience, which Hannibal - feigning reluctance - gives him.

“Stubborn creature.” 

“You have a knack for attracting those,” Will comments, slipping his feet - shoes and all - to the couch, setting a finger between his teeth as he grins. “And quite the hand for taming them.”

Hannibal looks up from the pup to follow the movement of Will’s legs as he sprawls long. He holds his breath, his words, his scolding at seeing Will’s boots set against fine velvet. It is a temptation, thrilling and illicit, to consider that the gardener is so casually defiling his perfectly preserved space.

Hannibal can’t decide whether he wants to adore his insolence with kisses or punish him for it instead. Either way, he loves it.

“A sense of possession and ownership, over place and people - and pups,” Hannibal amends, “is ingrained in us from a very young age. If we do not act as lords and ladies of our respective domains, why should we expect others to treat us that way? Of course, there are other contexts in which to practice the art of exerting control.”

His eyes narrow a little in amusement, and slowly, Hannibal allows himself to sit against the floor. Tight breeches pull tighter still and so he sits inelegantly, heels against the floor and knees raised, legs spread enough for the puppy to clamber into his lap. He hums but allows it, very willingly allows it, framing the puppy’s muzzle with ungloved hands.

“What is required most, however, in pursuit of maintaining demesne or stricter forms of dominance, is a willing recipient to yield to them.” He sighs, as Laelaps licks his fingers. “This one does not seem to have any interest in paying that sort of attention.”

“He is still very small,” Will says, resting his cheeks against his folded fingers, watching the two of them interact as the puppy climbs higher against his owner, little toes splaying against his chest, wet nose seeking and red tongue slipping over skin until Hannibal hums and gently pushes the pup down.

“If you have the recipient’s love, you will have their respect and submission.” WIll’s eyes seek up to Hannibal’s and he grins. “Laelaps knows you are his master, but he prefers you when you play and treat him, than when you train him. He will learn, though, that he will get both should he obey. But the love? You don’t have to win that from him, that he has already given you.”

Will does not bring Winston with him to Hannibal’s rooms. He takes his time with his hound during the day when he works, before retiring to Hannibal’s rooms with him for the evenings, where more often than not he is exhausted further by the hands and mouth and cock of his lover.

Outside it is dark, though what time it is, Will cannot say and he does not care. He watches as Hannibal continues to give his dog attention and love, a patient hand despite pretending to complain, pretending to be put upon at having this dog at all. Will bites his lip and holds it a moment before letting it go with a gentle click of wet skin.

“I suppose if the worst that comes of my indiscretions - towards you, and in summoning this creature as means to bring you near - is that I am twice loved, then I will consider myself luckier than I deserve.”

With this, Hannibal lifts a hand to pull loose his cravat, and open the buttons of his shirt collar. Beneath the wriggling puppy, chasing his fingers to chew and teeth upon, Hannibal unbuttons his coat. Piece by piece, without usurping the claim to him laid by Laelaps, Hannibal dresses down to his shirt sleeves and sets his clothes out of reach from wet nose and burgeoning teeth. Only then does he lay long across the floor, youthfully indiscreet in his carriage, and allow Laelaps to rest on his chest, muzzle set to his paws.

Hannibal glances just past towards Will, watching him from the couch. They lay feet to head, at odds, but entirely comfortable. Increasingly, their stations have begun to meld when they are together, and especially when they’re alone. Though during daylight hours Hannibal is no less the heir to his family’s home and all in it, and during many nights Will’s submission to him makes Hannibal enthralled - enslaved - to his beauty, as often as not they are as equals.

Friends and lovers both, young and happy together.

Will adjusts his position and drops his hand down to gently grasp against Hannibal’s ankle, up higher to his calf, warm beneath the soft fabric of his pants. Will’s knuckles skim the inner seam up to his knee and return back down again. On Hannibal’s chest, Laelaps is calming down into sleep, already used to Hannibal’s company at night now that his soft sleeping pad is up here, behind Hannibal’s desk.

The little pup twitches in sleep and Will smiles, looking at Hannibal over the furry thing’s little floppy ears.

“He will learn,” Will repeats, softly. “He knows already so much more than the first time we started. He knows your voice and his name, he knows how to sit, though he doesn’t yet do it on command. He is learning. You are both learning.”

Will’s grin is wicked for a moment, before he tempers it.

Hannibal’s eyes narrow, and he lifts them to the ceiling with a hum. He strokes over Laelaps’ short fur, scratching velvety little ears, soothing motions that ease the puppy from his twitching and into a softly snorting sleep. Slowly, Hannibal brings his leg a little closer to Will, encouraging his friend’s hand to return beneath the leg of his breeches.

“It is easiest to think that control is best expressed through coarse means. Shouting, demanding, threats,” he murmurs. “But this elicits one of two emotions - disregard, or fear. Neither are conducive towards a working relationship, both will eat at it like rot until the scaffold on which the more elevated party begins to break away. In those moments, those who govern by cruel means must become crueler still. Violence and anger, punishment without due cause. Eventually the floor beneath them falls out, with no one remaining who might care to tend to it.”

He lets his eyes slip closed as Will’s fingers play across his skin again, tapping out an absent rhythm.

“While there are appropriate moments for punishment,” Hannibal purrs, brow raising without opening his eyes again, “patience and known expectations, expressed clearly and directly, yield far more amicable results for both sides. You must let your wishes be known, and ensure that those wishes are to the benefit of the greater whole.”

He parts his lips with his tongue, and they spread into a grin, crooked across sharp teeth.

“And yet for all my years of learning these particular arts, I must admit a certain sensation of being adrift. I am beginning to suspect that I am the one being trained, and not the one who is training.”

Will makes a sound, a bare shadow of those sweet little pleas he yields to Hannibal when he yields himself to him in their bed. His fingers continue the gentle caress against his skin before he carefully sets his feet to the floor, just against Hannibal’s side, on his toes, and steps over him silently. He bends to take the twitching puppy from Hannibal’s chest and curls him into his own arms, where Laelaps does little more than yawn and nuzzle against him, still so little and prone to sleeping most of his days.

Will takes him to his little bed, furnished with one of Hannibal’s old shirts so the dog might get used to his smell, and a small piece of sheepskin so the puppy can nuzzle into it. And he does, curls into a tight ball as Will leaves him and returns to his own master - just the same.

Without a word, he lays over Hannibal as the pup had, hands resting on Hannibal’s chest and his chin atop, legs stretched long on either side of Hannibal’s, and turned to gently rest his feet against the insides of Hannibal’s calves.

“You quite possibly are,” Will murmurs, pleased, turning his head and eyes still on Hannibal, pleased and warm. “When you are in a genuine reciprocal relationship.” He grins, then. “I have certainly trained you.”

Hannibal snorts, not unamused, but a dry sound all the same. As he set his hands to Laelaps, so too he sets his hands to Will. One strokes through his hair, wild curls without mind for fashion or civility, twisting thick and silken around his fingers. The other hand rests on Will’s back, and rub a steady ebb and flow along the ridges of his spine.

“You have always imagined yourself as my equal,” Hannibal chides him. “Certainly as children, but even when they separated us, it frustrated you to try and think why, why when we were just the same, did I get taken into the house for lessons and you were left bereft of me?”

Will arches a brow, but Hannibal continues. “And even now, you amuse yourself in thinking us at all the same. We are not equals, Will. We have never been. We could never be. And to entertain the idea of it is a mockery of the social strata on which this country is built - to usurp long-standing traditions for sentimentality and draw down the ire of those who would gladly put you in your place again.”

Turning his dark eyes downward, Hannibal skims his knuckles along Will’s cheek, and sighs.

“Beautiful Will, don’t you see that we might never reach reciprocality? You in the gardens, with your hounds and flowers and sky and earth, smudged always across your skin. You are so far above me that I can hardly see you without the sun striking me blind for even considering to lay my eyes upon you.”

This time Will snorts, and it is entirely fond, entirely loving, and he turns his head against Hannibal’s palm to nuzzle into it, to turn enough to kiss Hannibal’s hand, again and again in gentle adoration. He’s blushing again, as he does, always, when Hannibal talks of him in such a way, like he is something special and worthy and exceptional. Too long ingrained are the thoughts that he is the help, politely treated but invisible and unimportant until something goes wrong.

If it does.

“You hold me on a pedestal when I would kneel at your feet,” he murmurs. He smiles, turning his bright eyes to Hannibal as he shifts atop him and rests again, close enough to kiss him, so he does, softly, just lips to lips.

Hannibal hums against Will’s mouth, gathering both hands through his hair and down to frame his cheeks. If Hannibal had plans for the evening beyond this, he’s forgotten them along with his decorum. If Will is needed elsewhere, well, Hannibal has once again summarily decided that he is not needed with any urgency. Their kisses touch and touch again, clicking softly in the quiet of Hannibal’s room, neither hurried nor insistent despite the constant teasing tenor of their words.

He catches Will’s bottom lip between his own, holding a kiss there until Will draws away just enough to brush the tips of their noses together.

“And even in your kneeling you overwhelm me,” Hannibal murmurs, fine lines fanning beside his eyes, pleasured by paying praise to his friend. “Although -”

“Although?”

“Although,” Hannibal continues, “there is suggestion within your suggestion, and no matter what noble edifice I attempt to erect, there will always be some greater structure ready to exceed it.”

Will’s cheeks color further and he smiles where Hannibal holds his face before him. He thinks of the things he has learned, the things he has been taught. He thinks of how every time, after every night together, after every game, he has felt himself a king, never once demeaned or degraded, though some games draw his name and lack of title through the dirt.

He adores it, in truth. He adores the freedom to be something low and chastened.

“I will take pride in helping you erect any noble structure,” Will murmurs, grinning. “And take just as much pleasure in taking it down, again and again. We do well to complement each other, my friend.”

Hannibal slips the side of his finger beneath Will’s chin to lift it a little higher. It’s hardly any movement at all, but that slight straightening pulls Will’s neck into a graceful curve and tugs just as certainly between his legs. Hannibal looks down his nose, as if surveying a horse at auction, tilting Will’s head from side to side. But on each cheek he presses a kiss, another to his nose, and finally settles to his lips with a distinct sound of approval.

No matter the tenor of the play together, no matter the tone in which Hannibal speaks to him, how harsh the stripes he skins from trembling thighs or how much he makes Will’s muscles ache pressing deep and fast inside of him, Hannibal is, when play has ended or at any other time, in truth a fair master. He must be - Will deserves nothing less than to know how beautiful Hannibal considers him, than to be as adored for his mind as for his body. Oftentimes they speak for hours, about everything and nothing, until the first fingers of dawn stretch across the grounds. Other times they are content to simply lie near each other, occupying the same space, ensconced in books and daydreams.

There is nothing that happens with Will that Hannibal does not cherish.

He frees his hands from Will’s face and moves to sit, kissing away the fussy protest and instead catching Will around his thighs. Strong legs snare Hannibal’s waist as Will is lifted from the floor and held aloft, in a series of movements altogether too graceful despite the comfort they found on the floor. Hannibal leans away from another kiss, nuzzles against Will’s hands when they alight upon his cheeks, and his eyes darken as he purrs.

“Where shall we build our temple tonight then, so that we may bring it down again with just as much delight?”

Will smiles, considerate and mischievous. He is slowly learning that pleasure can be had anywhere, whether in bed or on the couch or bent over a desk or pressed firmly against a wall. In a large bath, on the floor, it hardly matters once they're touching, feeling each other grow more and more aroused by the other’s hand and their own imaginings.

"There," Will decides at last, gesturing with a haughty tilt of his chin to the couch again, where he had so beautifully stretched just before, with long limbs and enticing arch of his hips. 

He does not care, tonight, who pleasures whom. Will finds himself as entirely spent, delighted, when he is touched as when he touches. He wants to whisper dirty secrets against Hannibal’s ear, tug his hair and nuzzle against him. He wants to wrap his arms around his friend and discuss philosophy and music, their next trip to London or something as simple as the weather. He wants to wake to Hannibal sketching, barely dressed and barely awake yet fingers already smudged with charcoal from his work.

Will kisses him and wraps his arms around Hannibal’s neck, clutching his own elbows as he moans softly. He rocks his hips up in a slow and practiced undulation against Hannibal.

“My Will,” Hannibal sighs across his friend’s cheek. He drops back into the couch, with Will astride, relinquishing himself just as willingly as Will gives himself to Hannibal. His spine curves to bring their groins together, rubbing stiff and clumsy and satisfied in that.

Of all the ways that they have had each other, of all the ways they relish learning again and again the heart, mind, and body of their friend, it is when they are this way that Hannibal enjoys the most. Their hands seek out buttons to bare the other, shirts and trousers twisted free, grasping bare hips and drawing fingers over ribs, mouths pressed to chests as if they might whisper secrets directly to the other’s heart. It is a reclaiming, not of status or possession or dominance or submission, but of the childhood they lost to society and each other. Discoveries of their feelings wrought in uncertain fumblings, knowing each other’s bodies as if they had no other before. How might it have been, then, to accidentally-intentionally kiss the other when they were tussling in the grass? How might they both have spent frantic nights trying to discern the meaning of it all, and finding no answer but the want for more?

Clumsy, their mouths touch in passing and both grin at the contact, chasing and capturing, each in turn. Hannibal skims his hands beneath Will’s underpants and cups the coiling muscles of his backside, skin hot beneath his fingers and wonderfully soft. He tilts his head back to rest against the couch, neck bared for Will’s kisses to find his throat instead, sucking marks again and again to make Hannibal shiver.

He rides a hand across Will’s hip and presses his palm to Will’s cock instead, rubbing awkwardly at the angle in which he finds himself, but Will laughs and rubs right back against him. Will’s laugh, sweet as honeysuckle, pours against Hannibal’s lips.

He loves him, God, he loves him. Hannibal has never loved anyone or anything more than Will.

Will continues to push up against Hannibal's hands, enjoying the slow build up of his pleasure that way. Clumsy and perfect, the warmth between them building as Will’s breathing starts to hitch, as his own hands seek down to rub against Hannibal’s cock, through the fabric of his underwear, then bare.

He knows Hannibal now, the strong panes of his body, the intricate and exquisite turns of his mind and the corridors within it. He is still as willful, still as stubborn and clever and funny as he had been in youth. Quick to laugh, Will knows, and hard to stop once it starts, rarely quick to anger, though that, too, burns hot once ignited.

"I will be exhausted tomorrow," Will whispers, smile pulling wider as he makes no move to stop their play. "Walking in half a dream state by the flowerbeds."

Hannibal groans against Will's neck, lifting a hand to the back of his head to keep him pressed so close. Secret exchanges, as if they weren't entirely alone in Hannibal's room, as if they were youths still at play, at risk of being caught and punished. Hannibal rubs himself into Will's hands, framing around his cock a perfect warm tunnel of soft touches calloused from work. He strokes slow and sinuous in return, wrist turning and long fingers snaring tight around Will's stiffened length.

"Stay with me," Hannibal pleads, as he always does. "Stay with me tomorrow, sleep late and wake and eat with me. I would see you laid across the flower beds, their petals delicate as the sun that makes you seem wrought from gold - stay, don't go."

He always asks, every night, cajoling gently or insisting as the head of house that Will not work, that he stay as idle as Hannibal. And though he knows the answer, he asks anyway, in hopes that perhaps Will might seek to simply stop his work, to lay about in lazy splendor and do nothing but know each other, and drink, and kiss, and read to each other, and kiss more -

"No," Will sighs, but the denial is gentle, fond. Every day he asks, Will is tempted. And perhaps over cold winter months he will agree. But he enjoys the work, enjoys the result of it, seeing people take in his gardens and recline within them, talking or walking or just sitting and breathing in the fresh air.

"I will return to your hands, your kisses and your bed every night, but I will work.” A nuzzle, a playful bite against Hannibal’s lower lip to tug it before Will kisses him again, moans soft into his mouth. Today there will be no demands, no sharp slaps of the crop or filthy words, though Will shivers just thinking of them. Today it is just them and their adoration.

"To bed," Will decides, grinning when Hannibal raises an eyebrow. "I have changed my mind."

"You are learning to speak as a lord of the manor."

"I am learning from a rather capable one, how to," Will smiles. "Take me to bed."

"Of course, my lord," Hannibal murmurs, grinning against Will's mouth as he hoists him and moves once more to standing. "Heir of my heart, liege of my loins -"

Will laughs bright birdsong and Hannibal keeps an arm beneath him, and one around his back to squeeze him close. Kissing at every step, Hannibal worships freckled cheeks pinked by sun, graceful golden neck, strong shoulders made tan. Boys at play, always, now, nevermind their age and station.

Hannibal spills his friend back across the bed and slinks heavy atop him, holding Will's legs wide with a hand set against his thigh. Scattering kisses across his stomach, he works his way up his smooth chest, refined with muscle, to burrow against his throat and moan when their cocks brush bare together. Will is what Hannibal has been seeking, hopelessly, in dim dens of iniquity. It is these hands, made coarse with work and gentle with affection, this mouth that parts for beautiful sounds, this heart that beats like fluttering wings beneath Hannibal's mouth.

It is no wonder he never found genuine satisfaction.

No one, anywhere, can compare to Will.

There is no urgency in their rutting, and Will moans, rocking up against Hannibal again and again as they start to slick, twisting pleasurably when Hannibal wraps his hand around them both to stroke.

"You undo me," Will whispers. "And I have never been as grateful for anything in my life as that.” That sense of wholeness, completeness, being with the man he loves and knowing he is loved back.

Will kisses, over warm cheeks and under closed eyes, over Hannibal’s straight nose and to his lips, whimpering his pleasure as Hannibal thumbs against the slit of his cock, draws another bud of fluid from him to rub over them both. Will thinks how in the morning he will be woken with kisses, over his body stretched bare beneath the sheets, over his hair, cascading messy down his shoulders.

He finds that the tiring days, though much enjoyed, are worth it, for that.

"I love you," Will sighs.

"Again," Hannibal tells him - demanding and begging all at once, with a wide grin as he rubs their cocks together.

"I love you," answers Will. He drapes an arm across his face, shy and sweet, and Hannibal gently removes it to kiss the words from him instead.

"Again."

“Hannibal -"

"Beautiful Will."

"I love you."

Their lips crush closed and spread wide again, and Hannibal hums his own love for his friend into the kiss they share. Will spreads his legs wide, lets his arms fall, still not reaching the far sides of the enormous bed that Hannibal has for too long had to himself. He draws back to watch the comfort Will shows here, and shivers at the thought that this room is as much Will's now as his own.

"Have you always been so lovely?" Hannibal wonders, laying low and heavy again to rut harder together, his hand curling in quick strokes between them. He pulls tight when Will moans and raises a hand to dishevel Hannibal's neatly combed hair, both their lengths slippery from the clear fluid spread between them. "I think I have never loved anyone but you. I do not think I could ever love another."

Will’s cheeks darken at the words, things he has always wanted to hear, had feared he never would, and now words he is whispered every single day. Adoration, devotion, love, and pride in that love. Never once has Hannibal balked at showing their relationship, not even when his parents had frowned upon his choice in partner over high tea on the lawn, not even when it was made expressly clear that his inheritance might be at stake.

He had kissed Will and held him close and grinned.

Will’s breath hitches and he squirms beneath Hannibal, drawing his fingers through his hair to tug it, down his back to press firm lines against his shoulders.

“Good,” he sighs, smiling. “For I will never love another either.”

And that’s all Hannibal needs to be so certain in the face of great distress regarding his entirely shameless decisions in life. To court and woo and win Will again and again is as worthy a life pursuit as Hannibal has ever had - far more important than marrying a name and making more of those names to please the older bearers of it. He has never wanted that, and if it costs him dearly, then it’s a price gladly paid not to lose his friend again.

If worst comes to worst, they could always live in Will’s little garden house together beside the lake.

The thought makes Hannibal laugh, a rich warm outpouring kissed along the graceful arch of Will’s collarbone. He strokes them together a little harder, a little faster, tightening at base and tip. When Will bends from the bed, trembling, it’s with a moan that curls so firmly in Hannibal’s belly that he has to hold himself back from finishing right then. Instead, he tucks an arm beneath the bridge of Will’s back to drag them sitting up together, legs entwined and cocks squeezed between them, arms ensnared and mouths rubbing open, heated kisses.

Will had never in his life imagined he would want this, and now he cannot imagine wanting anything else, or anyone else. They fall in sync now, as they did when they were children, in playing together, making love, interacting on the grounds and enjoying time with nothing more than murmured words and soft fingers in the other’s hair.

Will shivers, thighs tensing around Hannibal’s, and pulls him close to hold him tight when he comes first, releasing hot and thick against Hannibal’s hand that still continues its rhythm. Though he has been told and shown day after day, that such a thing is not shameful, Will still blushes bright when his body breaks to pleasure first, when Hannibal has to see him come apart. He laughs, now, nervous and small, and presses a wet kiss to Hannibal’s cheek.

Hannibal tilts their lips together, not kissing considering how short their breath has pulled, but simply touching. Delicate, damp skin, flushed warm as Hannibal's eyes flicker closed, and his body pulls rigid with a choked moan.

"I love you," Will tells him again, and Hannibal goes taut but for the uneven bucking of his hips. Driving against Will, against his own hand now glistening with Will's seed, he joins his own to it in thick pulses that empty him burst by burst. Slower, dripping, he milks himself dry and smears their mess together with another languid pull.

Hannibal gives him this, entirely, as he gives his words, his mind, his attention, his love.

Will is everything, and so he should have everything that Hannibal can offer him.

A warm bed and an exquisite home to make his own.

As much work as contents him but not so much as to overwhelm.

New clothes to wear to fashionable events in the city, and stripes across his skin on nights spent in darker pursuits.

His love, his devotion, his unbridled adoration of the only friend he's ever really had.

Will mouths against his throat, silken tongue and softer lips, before he turns to nuzzle against Hannibal, catch his breath. It is late, perhaps early morning by now, but Will is not at all exhausted into sleep. He wants to stay up and talk, wants to learn and discover the world with this man he holds against himself now, who tilts his head to nuzzle Will in turn.

“Perhaps,” Will murmurs, sitting back enough to see Hannibal, sleepy-eyed and contented. “The birches can enjoy a day unscrubbed. And I several hours of your company before breakfast.”

He watches Hannibal’s eyes narrow, watches the way he looks at Will both fond and entirely adoring, before he draws his clean hand through Will’s hair, to push it behind his ear.

“Perhaps,” he smiles.


End file.
